Your Next Play
Marvel Rivals
by Levi Enderle
Hello everybody, and welcome back to your next play! Today, we are going to be looking at a very popular game- Marvel Rivals!
Marvel Rivals is a free-to-play 3rd-person PvP game based on characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU for short). You can play as your favorite characters from the movies/shows, and have lots of fun with your friends! The game has a few different ways to play, like a quick match, which puts you into either a capture-the-flag game or a mode where you have to escort the payload to the end of the map to win. You play with 6 people on each team, fighting against each other, either trying to defend their point or trying to take it for themselves. At the beginning of each game, you and your teammates each choose a character to play, often referred to as heroes. There are 3 different types- Vanguards, a tanky, slow, low damage character, a Duelist, a medium health, fast, high damage character, or a Strategist, a fast, low health character that helps keep the team alive. You can even customise the look of your character with different skins, animations, and MVP cutscenes! One of my favorite things about Marvel Rivals is how it has a low skill floor and a high skill ceiling- Let me explain.
That basically means that if you just started playing the game, you can still have fun and win, and the high skill ceiling basically means that you can always get better and play more competitively.
In conclusion, Marvel rivals is a great game, and you should definitely check it out if you have the chance!
Clash Royale
by Levi Enderle
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the games section! Hopefully everybody had a great Christmas and New Year! In this edition, we will be talking about a game I’m sure many of you are familiar with-Clash Royale!
Clash Royale is a hit mobile game where you and your opponent compete against each other to take each other’s towers down. You start by making a deck beforehand, made out of 8 total cards, with 4 in your hand at all times. You can have up to 2 evolution cards (A special buff after you cycle it enough times), and 2 slots where you can either put heroes (A type of card similar to champions, only they are just different versions of regular cards), or champions (The rarest cards that have unique ability buttons). Once you have your deck built, you battle!
Battling involves a system called “Elixir”, which you spend by placing down different troops, spells, or buildings. You and your opponent have 3 towers each - 2 Princess Towers and one King Tower. You win the game by either taking down the enemy’s king tower, your opponent having more damage taken in the sudden death phase (I’ll get to that later), or taking down 1 or both princess towers by the time the clock runs out. The game starts with 2 minutes and 30 seconds on the clock, allowing just the right amount of time to get some good damage in. You start with about 7-8 elixir out of the maximum amount of 10 elixir, allowing for a strong start to the game. Every card has something unique to it, such as only being able to target the ground, having splash damage, or having wild amounts of health. The timer goes from 2:30 all the way down to 1:00, where double elixir turns on. When the clock hits 0, whoever took more towers wins! Here's the twist- if no towers are taken, you get 3 extra minutes called “Sudden death.” At the end of this, whoever has more damage on the opponent’s tower wins!
Overall, it is a very fun and competitive game that has so many rules, I could talk about it for hours. You should definitely check it out, and I will see you next time!
Mage Arena
by Levi Enderle
Hey everybody, and welcome back to Your Next Play! I'm very excited to tell you all about a very fun and unique game called Mage Arena. Hopefully you enjoy this article.
And once again, let me know if you have any suggestions for games I can play and tell you about that. Let's get into it. Mage Arena is a very fun and entertaining game focused on capturing flags and 1st person POV combat.
You play as either a wizard or sorcerer fighting for victory by capturing the flag on your opponent's side. The way that this game is unique is that instead of attacking with the traditional way, like using a controller or keyboard and mouse, you actually use your voice with a microphone to attack. You'll have to say things like “fireball” or “magic missile” when you want to attack the enemy, which makes this a very fun and complicated game, introducing a new mechanic that few people are familiar with. This game is very fun because it's different every match) and you can have some hilarious interactions with other people. You can find this game on Steam for about 3 dollars. I recently bought it and have had an amazing time playing it since. The game has a very welcoming player base, so when I first started playing there were people in every match helping me learn the basics. Another thing i think is very important to note is that it’s a retro-style game, with grainy graphics and old fashioned sounding voice lines, almost like a video game your dad or grandpa would’ve played when they were a kid. You should definitely check this game out, especially because of its low price point, that way you don't regret it if you never play it again. Definitely one of my favorite games out there, and hopefully you can give it a try!
Silksong
by Levi Enderle
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the second edition of Your Next Play! I’m so excited to share game recommendations for you, and if you have any game suggestions, just let me know! You can usually find me around the school, or email me at Levi.Enderle@avondaleschools.org. However, I am trying to stay away from more mainstream games that everybody already knows, and want to talk about smaller, less known games so everybody learns something new. With that, enjoy my article, and I hope you have fun reading!
Last time, we talked about a small but mighty game, Hollow Knight. We talked about how it was such a good game that they started making a sequel for it shortly after, called “Hollow Knight: Silksong.” This game was highly anticipated for 7 years after its announcement 2 years after Hollow Knight’s release. In this game, you play as Hornet, a former boss from Hollow Knight that appeared multiple times throughout the game. Hornet is a small white bug, wearing a red dress and wielding- you guessed it, a nail. Instead of Hollow Knight’s currency of “Geo”, you use Prayer Beads around the map called “Rosaries”. Similarly to Hollow Knight, you have your NPC’s who sell you things and add just the right amount of Lore to the story, new types of enemies, a different set of items and attacks, and a map that is about 2 times as big as Hollow Knight’s already massive map. Silksong is notorious for having even harder bosses than Hollow Knight, with some taking players days or even weeks to finally beat. Something I really like about this game is that although in ways it is very different from Hollow Knight, the lore and even some characters connect, giving us a bigger understanding.
Overall, Hollow Knight Silksong is such an amazing game done by only 3 people. They use amazing game mechanics and ideas, make it perfectly balanced between fun and hard, and always make sure your money is well spent at the price of just $20. You should definitely give it a try if you have a little bit of money to spare. Thanks for reading, and I will see you in the next article!
Hollow Knight
by Levi Enderle
Hello everybody, and welcome to the very first ever edition of the Video Games section of the Griffin Post! I am so excited to tell you readers all about the new Video Games I find, and with that, enjoy the article!
Hollow Knight is a famous 2D Indie Action-Adventure game from 2017 with almost fully positive ratings across all platforms, made by 3 Australian guys in one of their mom’s basements. If you think I’m kidding, think again! These 3 guys named themselves Team Cherry and made one of the most loved games of all time in just over 2 years. Hollow Knight gained lots of popularity over the years for its unique difficulty and style, providing an advanced and detailed gameplay experience with lots of gimmicks, secrets, and is widely known for its nearly impossible bosses, with a lot of players unable to finish the game! You play as a nameless bug, who some players call “Ghost’, or “The Knight”, who wields a small yet powerful nail as his weapon, and you start the game by defeating harmless enemies with little health, all the way to bosses that require lots of difficult parkour, frame perfect timing, quick decisions, and have much more health than you! As you traverse the game, you will encounter NPCs that have a lot to offer, like maps to help you explore the hilariously large area, markers to help you find your way around and mark interesting spots, and even charms, a really important part of the game, allowing you to use unique abilities, increase your attack range, or even have little bugs to help you out along the way, all at the cost of notches. Each charm has its own unique cost based on its strength and versatility, with some good ones costing up to 4 notches and some of the worse ones costing as little as 1 notch. Players loved it so much that they made a sequel called Silksong with a much bigger map, different mechanics and so much lore that we can talk about in the next article.
Overall, Hollow knight is an amazing game with unique mechanics that set it apart from the rest, and you should definitely check it out!